Barbs & Gouramis?

[Tank2NV]

All right. First off I have a 29 gal tank I started it about 2 months ago so I am well past my cycle stage. I really didn’t know what to put in the tank so I started out with some aussy rainbow fish then later added 3 black ruby barbs, 1 small red tail shark. Now the black ruby barbs aren’t that big so I thought I could get away with a couple Dwarf Gouramis so I went and got a Cobalt and a Blood Red. Now the barbs go after the gouramis ... feelers? I don’t even know what they are. The gouramis have been hiding and running away from the barbs since I got them. I only got the gouramis on Jan 23rd and today is the 25th and I don’t know if they will get used to each other or not. Usually my barbs left the other fish alone. I heard that if u have more barbs they keep to them selves but I don’t want to have an all u can eat feast for the barbs either. Any ideas or suggestions??

 

[digital_run]

Usually the rule with most barbs is not to keep them with slower long finned fish such as gouramis....Also i think adding a few more barbs would ease aggression as they will mostly be interested in themselves...Also just from experience...Red tailed black sharks can be quite the aggressive fish as it ages...I had one housed with a group of 8 tiger barbs and it was at times viscious towards them...But some get lucky and get a docile one and never have problems....I would either think about getting a few more barbs or choosing between the two. HiH

 

[mandi]

Yes, as digital_run mentioned, barbs tend to be very nippy toward other fish. It helps to have them in groups of 6 or more (they will keep more to themselves).

Personally though, I've had nothing but bad experiences keeping barbs with types of fish other than more barbs (ie. mixing green & tiger barbs). But that was my first tank a few years ago, so who knows...

 

[Tank2NV]

I'll give them a few more days together and see what happends...if things don't go good i will flush the barbs down the toilet hahaha j/k. I'll give them away. Also my red tail is very quiet...the gourami shares his log and they get along fine. Thanks for the advice.

 

[digital_run]

Yes, as digital_run mentioned, barbs tend to be very nippy toward other fish. It helps to have them in groups of 6 or more (they will keep more to themselves).

Personally though, I've had nothing but bad experiences keeping barbs with types of fish other than more barbs (ie. mixing green & tiger barbs). But that was my first tank a few years ago, so who knows...

I currently have a 50 gal tank with 8 Tigers...5 Aruilius Bars...and 4 Clown barbs and its a great active tank with tons of colour....The tiger barbs are the little guys in the tank and get pushed around alot

 

[Yenko]

A school of Tiger Barbs will get along with the larger gouramis but not Dwarf Gouramis.

 

[Grouchy]

I just posted a similar question in the cyps forum. I have a large group of tiger barbs in a 29 gallon tank. A lone pearl gourami was fin-nipped by two of the younger barbs then others started joining in. The more I study the little buggers, the more I think nipping behavior is limited to younger barbs that have probably fallen to the bottom of the shoal's pecking order. Maybe even isolated from the shoal in ways (although none are really physically isolated).

Size makes no difference to fin nipping. I had a tiger barb (named "stab" because of a black discoloration that looked like a stab wound, easy to identify) that tugged on the tail of a pleco four time shis size. The pearl gourami is two to three times the size of the barbs mentioned above. I think it has to more with a combination of youth and enthusiam with order within the tiger barb shoal. They'll hover around the victim, make a couple of trial runs, then get up the courage to take a nip. Unless the victim fish fights back it will continue to get nipped and other barbs will get the courage to join in.

I'll try to compile info from my other post but tiger barbs and gouramis share the same southeast Asia backwater environment. When I do a tank upgrade I'm going to let the gouramis establish control first, add tiger barbs in reasonable sized groups, and remove offenders to another tank or to the LFS. When that happens, I'll post results/info.